Unpacking
by Acute Delirium
Summary: Jack learns more about Shawn's life with-but mostly without-his parents. He doesn't like what he learns.


**Unpacking**

Jack had been bugging Shawn to pack for the entire week before move in day at Pennbrook. It was just like Shawn to put it off until the last minute, and Jack knew it was going to be like one of those nights where Shawn had an essay to write so he stayed up all night but he wouldn't turn off the TV. And then the noise would keep Eric up and he'd keep Jack up by singing songs about ducks. And Jack would yell at both of them and they would call him an old man.

They all hated each other for a week after nights like that. And Jack wanted to avoid Shawn hating him when he could. So on the afternoon before move in day he knocked on Shawn's door with full intentions of offering help and being the big brother who was there for you when you needed it.

He only knocked once before he heard "Yeah come in." Taking a deep breath to prepare himself for the pigsty he was about to face, Jack opened the door.

The last time he had been in Shawn's room was when the water damage kept Jack out of his nice, organized, citrus scented room. He could barely stand being in Shawn's disaster pit. Newspapers on the floor—Shawn didn't even _read _newspapers—empty soda cans under the mattress and that blanket that smelled like mold. The whole place him a little sick.

So the last thing he expected when he walked it was for the room to be absolutely sterile. There was no garbage on the floor, the bed was stripped and the only thing left was Shawn sitting on his mattress with the gray bag beside him.

Shawn had his back to him. He appeared to be counting out a deck of cards on the mattress. Jack could hear him muttering "thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine, forty." Jack waited for him to get to fifty two, but Shawn ran out of cards at forty seven. He didn't seem too bothered though. He just took the deck of cards and shoved them into the grey bag.

"Where're the rest of your bags?" Jack asked.

Shawn jolted around and the calmness that he had when he was counting that incomplete deck of cards was gone. "What the hell man? You enjoy spying on people?"

"They better not be in my room," Jack pressed on. "Because if you think that's going to get me to carry them to the car for you, then you are dead wrong."

"What better not be in your room?"

"The rest of your stuff."

Shawn scoffed and punched his bag. "Listen man. I know you probably had a moving van and a chopper with all your stuff. But this is all I need. I've got my clothes, I've got my toothbrush. I'm set."

Jack didn't believe it. He walked up to the closet and pulled the cloth aside to see inside, expecting suitcases and probably more trash. Nothing was there.

"Yeah, but you need more than clothes. You need stuff. Books, CDs...stuff."

Shawn pushed his hair back and sat back down on the mattress. "That crap's just a hassle to move with. I brought what I didn't need down to the trailer park."

"To store it?"

That got him a look like Shawn thought he was the biggest idiot in the world. "Yeah" Shawn scoffed, "in my silver vault. No not to store it you moron. I brought it for other people."

The words "why would they want your stuff" pressed against his lips, but Jack stopped himself before he made that mistake. Of course not everyone at the trailer park could buy everything they needed. Shawn was doing something really nice. It just didn't make sense that he would give so much away.

But Jack wasn't about to say that and risk offending him. "That's nice of your Shawn."

Pushing his hair back again Shawn got up, bringing his bag with him. "Yeah well, they gave so much to me when I lost all my stuff."

With that he pushed past Jack and headed into the kitchen. Jack stood there trying to figure out what he meant until he knew for sure what Shawn meant. Then he followed him into the kitchen.

"Tornado?" It made sense. Everyone was talking about trailers getting picked up by tornadoes all the time.

"Nah. My mom drove off with the trailer." Shawn ducked behind the refrigerator door.

"What do you mean, she drove off with your trailer? With your house? And all your stuff?"

Shawn reappeared with a carton of orange juice. "Yeah, that pretty much covers it."

What a thing to happen. All your stuff disappearing and you couldn't do anything but wait for it to come back. Jack sat down and pulled his favorite mug out of the sink. "How long did you have to use other people's stuff until she came back with it?"

There was that "you're an idiot" look again. "She never came back with any of it."

"But your trailer—"

"Is Uncle Lou's. He went to prison, so we get it until he gets out." Jack tried not to look too shocked at the realization that someone in his bloodline was in prison. Shawn hated it when he was surprised by things.

"So she never came back—" Jack started before Shawn slammed the orange juice on the counter. Juice sloshed out and onto Shawn's hands.

"Of course she came back. She always came back." Jack shot up and grabbed a paper towel. Shawn stepped back when he went around to clean up the juice. Like he didn't want Jack anywhere near him. Even so he picked up talking with Jack saying anything. "She just took longer that time. We were really messed up and she had to wait until she was sure she wanted to live with us again."

Now this kid wasn't making any sense. "Who's we?"

Shawn backed up into the couch and let himself fall down onto it. He immediately pulled a pillow over his stomach. "Me. And my dad."

Jack clenched the wet paper towel in his hand. A mom shouldn't be allowed to leave just because her crazy husband was bugging her. "Well at least you had your dad," Jack said, hoping that would be the end of this whole thing and they could just watch TV and forget it ever happened.

But apparently the world didn't work like that. "That would have been nice," Shawn said bitterly. "Of course he had to find her. Not that he ever did. I was stuck sleeping in my teacher's apartment for a year."

Jack took a step back. He hit the counter and the pain was sharp enough to make him angrier. They'd left him. His brother's parents had abandoned him. While Jack was getting a laptop and living with people who loved him Shawn had been abandoned.

"How old were you?" Jack ground out.

Shawn sat up and stared at his brother, his eyebrows scrunched together. "Like fourteen."

Clenching his jaw Jack stared at the ceiling. "Ok."

He was quiet for longer than he wanted to be, but what was he supposed to say? I'm sorry your parents didn't care about you? I'm sorry everything was so messed up? There was nothing honest he could say that wouldn't make everything worse. So he just stared at the ceiling and waited for everything to be ok.

"I love them," Shawn said after a while. Jack finally looked at him again. He still had the pillow in his arms but he looked at Jack solid, like he was sure of that. And it just made everything worse. He started to walk towards his brother. To hug him or just touch him to make sure he was really ok, but he hadn't made it two steps because he ran into the long gray bag Shawn had dropped on the ground. The bag with everything he owned.

Jack bent down and pulled it over his shoulder. "I'm bringing this down to the car."

He was out of the apartment before Shawn could say anything. He hurried into the elevator and everything was getting blurry, but he was sure Shawn was on the other side of those doors as they closed, staring at him like he had absolutely no idea that his half-brother was about to dissolve.

At least that's what Jack hoped.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: <strong>I decided I needed to see Jack uncovering just how messed up things were in Shawn's life before he arrived. There's a lot I could say about this, all really annoying stuff about perception and word choice but I haven't slept in 22 hours and I don't know if any of those came across. I know this isn't a very active fandom, which would make you reviewing so valuable to me. So please review.


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